Meridian Hill Park ' HABS Wo. DC-53; Sixteenth Street, north of Florida Avenue,;K.W. Washington District of Columbia PHOTOGRAPHS * REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA Historic American Buildings Survey National Park Service Department of the Interior • Washington, DC 20013-Y127 .c: HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY . MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. DC-532 Location: Located approximately one and one-half miles north of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, the park is bounded by Sixteenth Street on the west, Euclid Street on the north, Fifteenth Street on the east, and W Street on the south. Present Owner and Use: Meridian Hill Park is a Federal park, owned and maintained by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of Interior. Dates of Construction 1912-1936 Statement of Significance One of the first public parks in the United States to be designed as a formal park, generally considered to be in the continental tradition, rather than in the "natural" mode associated with the English park; Meridian Hill Park was constructed over a period of about twenty five years. Horace W. Peaslee, the architect in charge, based his work on a preliminary design by George Burnap, landscape architect. In this formal park the architectural and horticultural elements work together in a symbiotic manner. Under the guidance of the Commission of Fine Arts, the park benefited from the finest criticism of the day. The technologically innovative use of exposed aggregate concrete provided a facsimile of the stone and mosaic masonry traditionally employed in the Italian Garden. The Park represents an effort in a democratic society to match the major European city park. Located just outside of the original city at the first line of hills, and directly north of the White House, the park conforms to the plan proposed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant and his associates, and the plan proposed a century later by the Senate Park Commission, the Plan of 1901 (commonly called The McMillan Commission Plan). MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. 532 (page 2) CONTENTS PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. The Site 1. Setting p. 4 2. Name p. 4 3. Design Summary p. 7 B. Plans and Planners 1. The L'Enfant Plan, executed by Andrew p. 10 Ellicott, 1792 2. Senate Park Commission Plan of 1901 (The p. 10 McMillan Commission Plan) 3. The Commission of Fine Arts p. 11 4. Planning for the Park: Earlier Plans, p. 12 Land Acquisition, Mary Foote Henderson (Mrs. John B. Henderson) C. Landscape Architects, and Designers 1. George Burnap p- 14 2. Horace W. Peaslee p- 14 3. John J. Earley p- 16 4. Ferruccio Vitale p- 17 PART II. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT A. Major phases of design development 1. The Burnap plan: 1914 P- 18 2. Plan: 30 June 1917 P- 19 3. Profiles and sections: 1 March 1918 P- 20 4. The (final) simplified Plan: 30 July 1920 P- 20 5. Design Development during the 1920s and P- 23 1930s MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. 532 (page 3) 6. Holding the Line: 1939 to present p. 27 7. The Landscape Plan p. 29 8. Memorials and vrought-iron embellishments p. 30 9. Appropriations and expenditures p. 35 B. Design Precedents 1. General Statement p. 37 2. Specific Precedents p. 42 C. Innovative Technology "architectural concrete'* p. 46 D. Critique: Successes and failures p. 49 PART III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION A. Historic American Buildings Survey, measured p. 53 drawings, 1985 B. Selected drawings: National Archives and p. 54 National Park Service, National Capital Region: Lists and duplications C. Selected, annotated bibliography 1. General Sources p. 60 2. Sources for historical precedents p. 66 PART IV. PROJECT INFORMATION p. 68 MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. DC-532 (page 4) PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. The Site 1. Setting Located above Florida Avenue just beyond the boundary of the L'Enfant city at the terminal moraine where the coastal plain gives way to the piedmont hills, the park rises about 75' in elevation from south to north. The designers of the park clearly followed the dictates of the topography in looking primarily to the Italian hill garden for guidance in designing the park. A high re- taining wall divides the mall and promenade with its fine views of the city from the changing levels below, where the activity of the fountains and the cascade is resolved in the quiet pools at the southern end of the park. Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) drawing, HABS No. DC-532, Sheet No.5 out of 25, re- produces the topographic survey originally drawn up during early park development ca. 1916. 2. Name The need to establish an official meridian, or longitudinal base point, for navigational purposes, map making, and scientific work was recognized during the earliest years of the republic, when it was still necessary to base calculations on celestial measurements taken from the established meridian at Greenwich, England. A paper presented to the Columbia Historical Society by John Stewart, a District of Columbia surveyor, in 1895 describes some of the early efforts to establish an official meridian within the District of Columbia from which measurements could more easily be taken. (John Stewart, "Early Maps and Surveyors of the City of Washington, D.C," Columbia Historical Society Records, 2) The 1792 rendition of the L'Enfant Plan, drawn up by Andrew Ellicott, is based on a meridian which Ellicott took at the longitude intended for the Capitol building. On October 15, 1804, however, D. C. Surveyor Nicholas King reported that the "First Meridian of the U.S. ... which intersects the center of the north and south basement doors of the President's House..." had been established at Virginia Avenue, then a canal, on Sept- ember 20, 1793. (Ibid., 68) On December 18, 1804 the • "Jefferson Obelisk" was constructed to mark that same meridian. However, because it was used not only as a bench-mark, but also as a guy-post for barges, MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. DC-532 (page 5) it soon disintegrated according to Mr. Stewart. It was completely lost during the extension of Executive Avenue in 1872, but relocated and marked again in 1889. (Ibid.; 70) Apparently the Jefferson Obelisk was placed on the meridian which ran through the center of the White House, despite the view of Andrew Ellicott expressed in December of 1800 concerning the location of an appropriate official meridian at Washington. Ellicott is reported to have said: "The Capitol in the City of Washington stands at the intersection of the meridian, and the prime vertical center of North and South Avenue, may therefore be taken as the true meridian". Ellicott added that, "The positions of all leading avenues were determined by celestial observations and will be found in the 4th Volume of the Transactions of our Philosophical Society. February 5th, 1801." (Sally K. Alexander, "Life of Andrew Ellicott," Columbia Historical Society Records, 2:198) The situation has been further confused by those who have equated the efforts to establish an official meridian at Washington with the placement of the District boundary stone at Jones Point by Mr. Ellicott on April 15, 1791. This stone was placed as a begin- ning point for the calculation of the lines of the District of Columbia. A meridian taken through this point would not have passed through the White House, although as knowledgeable a reporter as John Clagett Proctor seems to have thought that the longitude of the Jones Point stone would have coincided with a meridian taken though the White House. (See John Clagett Proctor. Articles, Washington Star: 30 September 1928, and 15 January 1939) When David Porter purchased a farm of 157 acres just north of the White House where Meridian Hill Park is now located (c. 1815), he named his heights Meridian Hill because he thought that the "central meridian of the District passed through it". (Charles 0. Paullin, "Washington the Old Navy," Columbia Historical Society Records, 33-34:176) In about 1816, Commodore Porter asked his architect, reputedly George Hadfield, to construct his mansion near the brow of the hill in line with the White House so that, "the entrance door...was directly north of the center door of the President's House. On the edge of the south lawn, in close proximity to the house,...[he] placed the meridian stone." (John Clagett Proctor, "Commodore Porter was dirt farmer in Meridian Hill", Sunday Star, 3 September 1928) The stone was "...wrought and near 2 feet across and of the same height. The north edge of it was MERIDIAN HILL PARK HABS No. DC-532 (page 6) circular, and upon it was afterwards placed a brass sundial. From this stone Meridian Hill records its name." (Ibid.) The stone was removed when Sixteenth Street was extended. At that time it was placed at the southwest corner of Fourteenth and R Streets/ N.W., to be used as a carriage step. (John Clagett Proctor, Washington Star, 30 September 1928). Its whereabouts is now unknown. A plaque at the Sixteenth Street entrance to the upper park takes official recognition of the earlier meridian marker, which was located 52'9" west of the present park entrance in what is now Sixteenth Street. The only official United States meridian was set at the Naval Observatory in Foggy Bottom in 1850, where the instruments for measurement were located. Originally planned for navigational and scientific purposes, the outcry from map and chart makers who had based their measurements on the Greenwich meridian was so great that the Washington meridian was, in fact, used only for scientific purposes, as well as the establishment of the north-south boundaries of the new western states, but not for navigational purposes.